Self Work For White Allies (Winter 2021)

Self Work For White Allies (Winter 2021)

Feb. 22 - Apr. 5
6:00pm - 9:00pm Central Time

Instructor: Janna Sobel

These weekly learning sessions share tools created by United to End Racism. These free, open-source tools help people of all different backgrounds recover from the psychological effects of growing up in a white supremacist culture. UER work is done by people of all cultural backgrounds, and it is suggested to do in affinity groups-- or groups of people with shared cultural identity. This particular group is for people with whiteness as any part of our identity, who want to take responsibility for ending racism, starting with ourselves. We'll use a simple set of tools to do some of that crucial, maybe intimidating "look-at-yourself" work that our BIPOC friends have been asking us to do for a long time.

This approach is supportive, and it involves remembering, reflection and the release of feeling. It holds as a foundational premise that all people are inherently good, we naturally want closeness and equality with people of different backgrounds, we are all capable of solving big problems together, and anything that gets in the way of our being able to tell any of that is the result of early, false, painful conditioning. This workshop shares a useful practice that can help white people who want to be better friends, allies, colleagues and community members to get free of that conditioning.

Chicago Dramatists is dedicated to addressing racial inequality and systemic racism; this class is offered as a part of that larger effort.  To that end, this class is offered free.

Janna Sobel is a writer, actor, and performance teacher. She teaches Live Storytelling at Chicago Dramatists, and Improv, Improv for Anxiety, and Improv for Wellness at The Second City Training Center. She co-founded the Live Storytelling programs at Chicago Dramatists and the Second City. Janna also teaches and designs curriculum for The Innovation Academy at The University of Notre Dame, and for The Leadership Studio at The University of Chicago Booth School. She created and facilitates the creativity-boosting game Intuitive Treasure Hunter, and the community-building event Here, Chicago. She was fortunate to study this very useful form of self-work in the Bay Area over a few years, and saw it create deep and real change in white people where no other anti-racism approaches seemed to. She has been offering free learning sessions in this simple technique to people with whiteness as any part of their identity since this summer's racial justice uprising.

Classes will be held via Zoom. Instructors will send out Zoom invites one day before class begins. We encourage students to set up a Zoom account for themselves before class if they have not already to ensure when class begins you are able to jump straight into the art!